Hearts Stop Beating
by Permission2Hyphenate
Summary: An explorer finds herself infected with vamprirism. An unlikely hero or fiend comes to her and asks for help.-This is a short about an unnamed OC. Hope you enjoy it it was one of my late night ramblings...so read and enjoy!


-I do not own rights to Skyrim or any of the Elder Scrolls. Wish I did...but I don't. -

This is he product of me typing at five in the morning! I probably won't continue this or go anywhere with it because, frankly, I don't know where I would go...so review if you want...doesn't matter. Just a short little vampire spiel. (my take on vampirism doesn't follow the game closely but, hey...there wouldn't be any material if I did...)

Hearts Stop Beating

A small grunt escaped my mouth as I pushed through the basement door. My head swam as the taunting smells invading my nose. The bartender just up the stairwell had a pungent sweet smell that made me prickle with goose-flesh. He was just as young as I was, but that boy would never suffer such a curse. He would grow into a man and then an old man. He would father a child or two. Before, I would have loved to walk up the stairwell and speak to him and get to know him. Maybe we would be coupled and I would be the one to have those two kids...but now, though, that was but a lost dream. Now all I would love to do was walk up the stairs, thrust him against the wall, open his throat, and let his life's blood touch my lips and flow across my tongue.

I pushed the urge from my mind and staggered into the damp coolness of the basement. I knew of the hidden guest room used to house lords and highborn when they chose to stay in the inn. I figured I would stay there until the urges passed and I could look at somebody without imagining myself tearing their throat open..._if _it ever passed. My feet tangled against each other and I stumbled into a support pillar. My hands shook and my legs felt as if they might give out. The wound, bite marks, throbbed and sent small sharp bouts of pain through my neck and chest. I released the pillar and nearly fell to the stone floor.

I managed to make my way into the bedroom, nearly falling two more times. In my mind I knew that the basement held a certain chill, but I could feel a fever taking hold. Sweat drenched my back and I could hear my heart picking up. I collapsed into the bed and pulled my knees against my chest. My entire body shook and I tried to stifle a cry as the pain in my shoulder radiated into other parts of my body. I had never regretted anything more than I did in that moment. Killing vampires was tricky, contracting vampirism was too easy. I wanted so badly to deny what was wracking my body but it was becoming too apparent.

I could feel my heartbeat in my ears and pounding in my head. My eyes were wet with tears as I continued to smother out my cries. I knew that vampires had no heartbeat, and yet mine was still there. It was dangerously fast, but it was there. I knew it couldn't be long until my pounding heart was silenced and still in my chest.

My teeth clenched and I felt my canines grow and pierce through my tongue. Blood flooded my mouth, throwing me into a gagging fit, choking on my own bitter blood. My lungs began to burn as I tried to cough, cry, and breath all in the same instance. Blood eructed from my parted lips and ran down my chin. My heart was growing louder ever beat and it struck my chest so hard that it was beginning to hurt. Nothing had ever hurt that much.

My lungs screamed, my chest was on fire, and my entire body ached terribly. My face was drenched in sweat and tears. It would not be long.

My life was over. The young woman I had once been was dying. As my muscles clenched painfully and the every smell of every single person in the inn flooded my nose. I let out a pained whimper and felt my heart slam into my rib cage. I waited for another jarring slam but my heart didn't move again. The pain that had taken hold of me immediately subsided and my eyes rolled back into my head and...I died.

For a time.

* * *

I could smell it before I opened my eyes. Blood was in the room. Living blood. It was the same sweet pungent blood from...before. I didn't ease awake as I had in the past. My eyes flicked open and the world came into a blinding focus. I could see the wood grain in the ceiling in stunning precision. It was hypnotizing to follow the lines in the wood and gaze upon every un-sanded splinter. I tried to gasp in awe at the beauty of the wood that I had never noticed before, but found that the intake of air was unnecessary. It entered my lungs but did not register. It scared me at first. I tried again and again to breathe but the air entered and left like a draft did a house.

"Try as you will, you don't need to breathe." a voice said interrupting my attempts to breath. In a sudden, fluid motion I was sitting up. The bar tending boy sat across the bedroom, coolly sipping from a silver chalice. A chalice made of gold sat next to him on the table. I studied him up and down absorbing his features. His hair was long and he had a slight stubble in a matching blond. He was a nord through and through. His large black eyes stared at me in a relaxed but intrigued manor. I didn't think he was like me. I could smell the blood flowing through his veins.

When I didn't speak he started again, "You must be hungry, dove. You were beginning to feel it when you stumbled through the inn last night, were you not?" he took another sip of his drink, "Well, dove, you shouldn't abstain from drink. You will only grow sick if you do." he reasoned, taking the golden chalice and holding it out for me to take. I crawled across the bed testing my "new" arms and legs. I stopped at the foot board and eyed the chalice hastily. I could see it was filled with a thick burgundy liquid. I reached out and took it, retreating back to the other side of the bed. I looked down at the liquid and my jaw clenched.

"Wh-who's...who did you...?" I stumbled over words as the scent of the blood blinded me. I didn't want to drink it.

"Who's is it? Nobody you know. Nobody important." the boy shrugged, chuckling at my hesitation, "Just drink it, dove. The hunger won't subside until you do." he said in the same calm tone.

As lips grazed the brim of the chalice they began to tremble. I swallowed dryly, bit my lip, and clenched my eyes shut. The restraint it took to hold the drink back was painful. I craved it worse than I'd ever craved anything before. My mouth watered just looking at it, and yet my morals screamed and begged for me to stop as I raised the glass. The liquid brushed my lips and I couldn't hold my morals will any longer. I drank the blood of some slain peasant and soon it didn't feel wrong.

With newfound strength entering me I became bolder, "Who are you?" I asked bluntly, my lips dripping red. I felt powerful and feral. In all my life I had never felt a more peasant feeling. Not Talos himself could have broken me in that moment. I wanted to destroy something or even somebody.

"I am the dragonborn, dove. They call me, Sal. I specialize in your sort. Vampires...you intrigue me and I need your kind of help." he said, swirling whatever he had in his chalice around. "I'm looking to become a vampire but there is a slight problem. The dragon's blood running through my veins makes the contraction of this disease...difficult." he paused, a crude little smirk crossed his lips. How wrong had I been when I'd thought he'd never suffer like me? "Dove, I'll need you until my heart stops beating."

Well that's it! Hope you enjoyed it, because that's all there is! Thanks for reading! Chao!


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